


Cupidity

by dogblog



Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, prototype build snatcher, with a sprinkle of alpha build for flavor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 03:49:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogblog/pseuds/dogblog
Summary: She's a hardy one. Hardy and clever and with a spirit that can't seem to keep quiet. The forest is a place of death, but she traverses it like she's lived there her whole life, the only thing breathing in a sea of ghosts. It's so rare he sees anything as fascinating to watch.And he so enjoys collecting fascinating things.





	Cupidity

He sees her often, in the shade of the woods and the murk of the swamp, always busy, always moving. She's an adventurous sort, one that looks ahead never mindful of what's below, and he remembers thinking in the beginning how easy it would be to rob her, to follow her footsteps for what she's lost. It's not that simple, of course. Not with her sort. She's a smart one.

Smart enough, in fact, to rob him of his newfound treasure. He's still a bit sore over it.

And smart enough, he realizes, to learn how to face the forest without placing one foot too far forward. He sees it himself as he watches from the shade, the girl with her dealings with the Moon Jumper and how she never sticks about in his light for long. How she brandishes that silly parasol of hers towards her enemies before they can present themselves, cautious but sure. Subcon is not a kind place, and neither is she kind in turn.

She's an enigma. One that piques his interest the longer she stays around.

He sends her on errands, partly to sate his curiosities and partly to keep her from interfering in his work. After all, it's the least she can do for stealing what is rightfully is. He tells her of the game, of the paintings, of the well and the outhouse and the manor sitting in its kingdom of ice, offering rewards for her tasks should she complete them. He doesn't expect her to survive, for the outhouse is a yucky, irksome thing and the Queen is an ickle sort, but he follows to see how it turns out and perhaps to see about plucking her hat and spirit from her body when the inevitable happens.

It doesn't happen. She brings him paintings, unclogs the well, and sneaks past the queen with a survival instinct few have and comes to claim her reward, haggard around the edges but still very much alive, spirit singing its triumphs loud within its vessel.

He even tries to best her himself once, when he thinks her usefulness has come to an end and she's more liability than asset. He strikes from the shadows when the outhouse is defeated in a spray of green slime, snatching her hat and putting her at every disadvantage he can think of. But he knows her better now, has watched her all this time, hears how her spirit cries, and it's hardly a surprise when she winds up winning.

Such a strange thing she is, to survive against all odds, the only living thing left in this decrepit graveyard of a forest. She doesn't even leave when he asks, although it _is_ rather half-hearted, admittedly. She stays, and travels, and searches the woods as though she were snatching belongings herself. A walking mystery, a sea of what should be and yet isn't, and he finds himself glad for the blatant disregard the longer she lingers.

What sort of spirit does she have, he wonders? What does it look like, that thing that can't be stopped? How would it feel if he held it? He asks her just to see if she knows, but she doesn't reply. She doesn't speak much in general, actually. It makes him think of a more competent dweller, although it feels hardly respectable to think of her in such terms.

(He'd like to keep that spirit. It would have honors among the rest of his treasures, well tended to and cared for. But one cannot lose a spirit. It must be given.)

She's too clever to hand it over he knows, just like she's too clever to forget the hat on her head and clever enough to steal right from his own hands. But, watching her, there all by herself, he wonders if he might be able to snatch something else instead. Something even better.

"Say, where are your parents?" He asks one evening when she passes by. "Little children should be with their parents, right? But I haven't seen yours since you've been here. Just you, all by your lonesome!" When she says nothing, expression growing pensive, he continues on with the zeal of a dog on a hunt. "Did they forget you, all the way out here? Lose you somewhere in the forest?"

She says not a word, but the way her brow furrows with the look she gives him all but confirms his suspicions. After all, children without parents are quite lost indeed.

"Well, you know how the saying goes! One man's trash, another man's treasure!"

And then he's plucking her up and bringing her into the shadows, and they're both gone as though they had never been at all.

**Author's Note:**

> do u know how hard it is to write a character whose personality is like 5 lines of dialogue and a picture
> 
> anyways im not rly satisfied with it but whatever its as good as its gonna get. gg hat kid we knew you well


End file.
